Monochromatic
by alpha aquarii
Summary: It was a game of chess, true, but the stakes were suitably higher. Because, as you see, when you play with Death, you play with Lives... Oneshot. Implied BillyMandy.


Disclaimer: I don't own, not selling this, blah ma blah ma blah.

Bleh. I'm freakin' sick. Have a stomach bug or something, plus a fever. Boy, my teachers are gonna kill me. I have a test and an essay due today, and I didn't bring home any of my textbooks so I can't do any of my homework neither. Oh, and playing InstantChess online is making my brain hurt. I guess I'll write and edit this until I need to lie down again. It can't hurt too bad, can it?

An original version of this had a random Greek Mythology blurb with one of the Three Fates, Atropos, coming down to watch over the game, but that really screwed up my mind and the oneshot so I took it out. Y'all better give me get well wishes.

**M O N O C H R O M A T I C**

She seated herself at the table and glared at the reaper. "Take the white."

"My pleasure." He chuckled deeply, confident as he too sat down. He moved one of his edge pawns first.

She stared at the checkered board. Finally, she advanced her knight and sat back. In turn, he pushed his bishop out to the side of the board. The game proceeded in silence for many minutes, each move carefully measured and thought out. After all, time had been specially stopped to suit them. Of course, this lead to pushing wood for quite some minutes; each player studying the other, caught in a sort of defensive stalemate. Chess was psychological—each move hid a purpose, but when purposes were carefully concealed by both, neither daring to take out the opponent's pieces, neither could advance. Death moved his rook, a curved, twisted figure, to castle with his king.

"I don't see why we have to go through all dis."

"Because," she said, shoving an ebony pawn into the fray, "You need to learn your manners, Grim. _Never_ take what's mine."

"De boy—"

"—belongs to me," she finished. "Make your move."

He sighed and fingered another pawn.

Mandy took the first kill. She neatly knocked over a pawn with her knight, and this broke the ice, signaling the start of the war. The skeleton claimed her knight with a sneaky pawn, triumphant. She didn't blink as he slammed it down next to him.

"It looks like I've got de bigger catch." They were indulging in a game of sacrifices after all, and death was his expertise.

She casually plucked a white pawn off the board and set it beside her, replacing it with her other knight. "Don't get cocky, Grim. You've still got a long way to go."

"Ya shouldn't have challenged me to chess of all tings. I am de master of chess. No way to cheat."

"If I recall, the last time we played you _lost_."

"You were playing against my femur, Mandy," Grim snorted. "Dis time it's different. Ya got de whole of me to deal with, and de stakes are higher."

"Still, I wouldn't get over my head. You're just a collection of bones now, all as dumb as your _femur_."

Gritting his teeth, Grim violently knocked over a white bishop with his rook. "Ha! Dumb, was I, Mandy? Betcha didn't see dat one coming!"

She remained calm and cool, looking disdainful, unimpressed. "Rash, Grim," she murmured, and captured his rook with a pawn. He'd obviously overlooked it in his anger. "If you lose your self-control, you lose the game. It's rudimentary."

He was shaking now at her impassive form. "Give him up, Mandy," he said, voice deepening in frustration.

"No."

"Why not?" he mocked. "He's an idiot. He was bound to kill himself one day. Why won't ya let dat happen? Do you _care_ for him or someting? Why won't ya let me reap him?"

"I will let you reap him when I am good and ready. Not yet."

"Is dis your way of controlling people? Playing games over them? Limbo? Chess?"

Mandy sat still, gazing at the reaper as if he was a mere pawn to be used in her game. And of course, he _was_. "You agreed to my bet. If you win, you can go ahead and reap him. If I win, I keep the boy, soul intact and alive. Now move, boney, and don't you try giving me lip again."

"Fine. I will."

Grim focused his attention back on the game, purposefully taking a long time to deliberate. However, when it was clear Mandy was not going to feel or express her impatience, he moved a piece and the game resumed. They could have spent hours on the game, or it could be mere minutes. Time was frozen outside their little bubble, but time passed inside, and it was becoming clear who was beginning to dominate the board.

Under Mandy's lead, an army of black swarmed the chessboard, placed strategically to compensate for each loss on her part while threatening the white pieces. She tossed a careless glance at a small pile of black figures Grim had captured, and the even smaller pile of white on her side. That would soon change, though—her pieces were slowly trapping his, if the skeleton couldn't tell yet.

She ruthlessly directed a bishop to take his other rook, leaving it directly diagonal next to Grim's exposed queen. The queen had never moved yet and still stood on the white square it had started on. A pawn taunted diagonal behind the bishop, and another pawn from the opposite side next to the queen as well. To secure things, yet another pawn lay in defense behind the second one, and a rook threatened a clear path from afar, a pawn and knight poised to take over the square it lay on should the queen take it. The queen was surrounded on either side by its own white kin, unable to move. Trapped.

Outraged, Grim looked Mandy in the eye. She responded to his gaze, slowly: "Unlike you, I don't just try and kill everything on the board."

"Oh yeah?"

"It's a thing called strategy."

Grim's eyeholes narrowed until they were somber slits. "I've had enough of dis. You can play your silly mortal games of chess wit anyone else, but you're playing with de Grim Reaper now! Let's shake tings up a bit."

He picked up his scythe from where it lay on the ground and swung it fiercely through the air, blasting at the chessboard. The pieces clattered and shook, but not a single one fell out of place. Mandy looked on, seeming bored as each piece began to glow and change shape. However, she couldn't keep her eyes from widening when she glanced at Grim's trapped queen again.

It was _her_, her the rooks and bishops and pawns were taunting. Queen Mandy, an all-white scowling figure, brandishing a regal staff and dressed in elegant robes. Trapped by the real Mandy's wit. The black figures on her side of the board were now alive and wielding weapons, moving restlessly and looking everything from bloodthirsty to terrified. The rook—Hoss Delgado, threatening the white queen distantly with his mechanical arm. The bishop—Irwin, cowering noticeably under bulky armor. The knight—Mindy, sniffing haughtily on horseback. And various pawns spread all over the chessboard—Sperg, Pud'n, Harold, Gladys, even Piff, all wielding simple swords and shields.

Grim's crew was different. Nergal stood as rook, waving about inky black tentacles. Eris was the bishop, grinning cruelly and tossing her Apple of Discord back and forth. Dracula looked odd, mounted on a white horse and hefting a sword from hand to hand in confusion. His pawns were fearsome creatures from the Underworld, ones she had never seen before.

She stood as queen on both sides—white _and_ black, mirror images—but her eyes now drew to the black king. Grim. _Her _king. Her opponent's objective.

On the white side, the king was different. Billy, smiling emptily with a glazed look on his face. Ignorant...and blissful. She'd been planning to corner him too. To trap Billy was now her goal, all in an effort to save him.

"Go ahead, Mandy. Take my queen, there's no way out!" Grim cackled.

"It's still your turn, Grim. Are you going to move or are you saying you forfeit?" she said.

"Oh—right." He absentmindedly pushed a pawn forward one square. "Move!"

"If you say so." Mandy's eyes never left the board as she directed the pawn—Billy's mother, Gladys—to take the queen. With one swift flick of the sword, the queen was beheaded.

Blood spurted from the tiny figurine, the liquid beads like drops of fire all over the chessboard. Gladys smiled triumphantly and blew flecks of red off her sword. Mandy reached for the fallen queen mechanically, but the piece disappeared before her fingers could claim her, reappearing on her side of the board next to the figures she'd captured. And just like that, the drops of blood evaporated.

She withdrew her hand sharply from where the queen was and instead targeted Gladys, but the figure had already moved to replace Queen Mandy, at the other side of the chessboard. Before she could tip the pawn on its head, a crown replaced Gladys' helmet and her dull armor transformed to a dark robe similar to the queen who she'd just killed. Her sword remained unchanged though; the sign one would always be a pawn.

"Regicide," Mandy said.

Grim directed his last bishop—Eris—to kill the new queen. Eris threw her Apple of Discord at Gladys, laughing silently, and the figure fell, disappearing and reappearing as a plain pawn on Grim's side of the board. "Regicide indeed."

Mandy took the bishop with her own—Irwin, who covered his eyes as he killed.

"What do ya tink, Mandy? I made de game much more interesting, didn't I?"

"Whatever you say."

"Oh, come on," the reaper mocked. "Don't you love it? Chess is a game of sacrifices. Now you see how dat's true?"

"Make your move or forfeit." If he thought she would be disturbed by the chess pieces coming to life, he was wrong. These peons meant nothing to her—except the white king. But it wouldn't stop her from winning.

"Check," Grim whistled.

She eliminated the threat, and Grim did not bother to make a move on the black king again. They played in silence as their pieces screamed; but they did not hear. The lifelike figures killed and were killed; shrieked in pain and in joy. Mandy moved a shivering Irwin two squares from Billy. "Check."

He chuckled; once, twice, thrice. "You know what you're about ta trap, girl?"

"I know, Grim." Her black eyes blazed with light, though the light was frozen and iced.

"What if I told you…dat dis was all real? Dat we _are _playing with lives, and not just chess figures I made to look like people you know?"

"Then I wouldn't believe you," she said.

"Chess is a game of sacrifices," he repeated. "It's true. De forces of Life and Death won't allow him ta be spared."

Her voice was cold, colder than usual to accompany black eyes. "Why did you play, then?"

"I needed some entertainment away from me job. But de boy is doomed, and you can't change dat, child. He is destined to die, and I'll be breaking all de natural laws of de universe if I give his life back."

She tightened her muscles in anticipation; clenched porcelain hands like cracked china.

"He will die, Mandy, if you lose." He paused. "And he will die if you win."

-

In one swift motion, she swept her white hand across the table and the chessboard fell to the floor.

The pieces clattered onto the ground, all screaming noiselessly and drawing blood. Grim, outraged, stood up and froze the chess pieces until they were still portraits, portraits of agony. The board lay face down and she stood up as well, shaking only slightly.

"Give him back, Grim."

"I can't, child."

"You can," she hissed. "_Do it_."

"I—why would you want dat idiot back anyway? He's nothing but a burden—"

"Give him _back_. Stop him from dying, Grim." Her hair never looked more like devil horns to Grim than at that moment, her black eyes never seemed to be possessed by Satan more than then. "I don't _care _about how this goes against your job, against the rules. Get him back. Don't let him die."

"Mandy—"

"_Don't reap him_!"The air seemed to shiver, to shake—an earthquake, a heat wave, and Mandy narrowed her eyes as the atmosphere appeared to dissolve. "What's happening?"

"Our time limit's running out. Dis place is gonna disappear any second now and time outside will go on. I—" Grim paused, fingering his scythe and deliberating what to say as her figure grew unclear. "I'm sorry I have ta do it, Mandy."

She growled as the room fell apart, casting a last glance at the chess pieces. They were all red now from blood, one and the same—no more black and white.

Grim faded away and she was alone for a few seconds. She recognized the white king, and swore he was crying out to her.

-

"Hi, Grim! Where are we?"

The reaper merely grunted under the boy's weight. "Ya know, Billy, dis isn't how I usually carry souls to de Pearly Gates."

Billy laughed, a familiar annoying sound. He was perched on the skeleton's back, arms hooked around Grim's neck in typical piggy-back style. "But where are we, Grim? I thought you only took dead people to the Pearly Gates!"

Grim sighed, and for some reason, did not feel any of the pleasure he'd expected. He remembered her words: _Save him. Get him back, Grim! Don't reap him_. "You…died, Billy."

For once, Billy's soul was quiet. When he spoke again, his voice was tentative and prodding. "So I'm dead?" Apparently the boy wouldn't get any smarter in the afterlife, but Grim couldn't help feeling bad for him, if only a little. Despite what he'd said to Mandy, despite how he made it look like he didn't care.

"Yes." Grim landed at the Gates of Heaven and deposited Billy on a cloud. "Here. Saint Peter will come for you and judge your soul. I…got to get going. Goodbye, Billy."

"Wait! Grim!" The boy waved his arms from the cloud as Grim disappeared into another portal. "What about forever?"

-

_Mandy, from Endsville_

_Death: Suicide _

Grim started at those words, feeling every one of his bones going stiff. He held his list through ossified fingers and stared at the letters as the portal automatically took him to his destination. _Suicide_?

Before he could change direction, the portal opened up and dumped him in the girl's all-pink bedroom. Her pale body did indeed leak rich, sweet blood all over the table she sat at, eyes closed, a knife laying on the ground beside her. The first whiff he took filled his eyes with tears, the smell was so strong, a specialty line of perfumes.

The flower on her pink dress had turned crimson and the fabric had parted in several places to allow the knife, the cuts. A familiar but terrifying gameboard lay on the table untouched, black and white pieces all set up in a rigid order.

Her soul hovered above her dead body, evidently waiting for the reaper. "Another game of chess, Grim?"

**End**


End file.
